Putting an end once and for all to skeptics who claim Bigfoot is nothing more than a myth, the giant, hairy creature has been captured in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York.

“This is a monumental day for humankind,” exults anthropologist Marcus Wainright. “We finally have proof that this mysterious animal is a reality.”

But the scientific community’s eagerness to study the captured Bigfoot has been frustrated by the Department of Homeland Security. The towering humanoid vanished after the anti-terrorist organization took him into custody in the belief that he has ties to Al Qaeda.

The bizarre story unfolded when Bigfoot stumbled into a comedy club in the famed resort area – home to the Borscht Belt, a series of hotels and other vacation spots in which many of America’s most illustrious funnymen have performed.

“I was holding tryouts when this giant wearing what I thought was a gorilla costume lumbers in,” says club owner Myron Schwartz. “I figure a guy in a monkey suit’s got some comic potential. So I decide to listen to his shtick.

“I shove him in front of the mike and he starts to scream and shout. I can’t understand what he’s talking about, but I think maybe he has some kind of Sam Kinison thing going on. Nobody could understand what he was saying, either, and he made a mint doing stand-up.

“But the first thing this guy does is eat the microphone. Any comedian who can eat a mike is OK in my books. I’m ready to sign him up when, all of a sudden, 12 big, black SUVs come roaring into the parking lot and guys wearing bulletproof vests and carrying guns jump out.

“They’re all pointing their guns at Mr. Gorilla Suit and yelling at him to get down on the ground. The poor SOB is freaked and makes a break for it. They had to Taser him 15 times to bring him down.

“They cuffed him and stuffed him into one of the SUVs, muttering something about water-boarding, and then they disappeared in a cloud of dust.”

Prior to his appearance at Schwartz’s comedy club, Bigfoot was spotted by a local resident, 86-year-old Virginia Popper, rummaging through a dumpster in back of a convenience store.

“I keep up with the news,” Popper says. “I know they’ve been looking for Osama Bin Laden ever since 9/11 and haven’t found a trace of him.

“I know he’s 6ft. 6in. and has a beard. When I saw this huge, bearded man at the Dumpster, I realized Bin Laden had been hiding out here in the Catskills all along. I called 911.”

“I’ve known her for years and her eyesight isn’t what it used to be,” he says. “But you can’t ignore a sighting of Osama Bin Laden in your own back yard, so we alerted Homeland Security.”

A government spokesman acknowledges that the suspect they took into custody is Bigfoot and not the terrorist kingpin, but became evasive when asked why the creature hasn’t been released or turned over to scientists for further study.

Anthropologist Wainright claims the problem is rendition, referring to the government’s practice of secretly transporting terrorist suspects to foreign countries where torture is a legal interrogation technique.

“I have it on good authority that they’ve lost Bigfoot,” he says. “They wanted to send him to Somalia, but due to budget cuts, they had to use a commercial airline rather than a military plane.

“They registered Bigfoot as an animal and the airline put him on the wrong plane, one destined for Waco, Texas. That’s about 50 miles from George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford.

“As far as anyone knows, Bigfoot is on the loose near the president’s home.”